Read my full review on my blog: http://ofdiceandpenblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-first-doctor-sourcebook.html

This book is not what I expected. To be honest, however, I’m not entirely sure what I expected. I figured there would be information on the first Doctor and all his companions, probably also the key aliens and villains from that era. There would probably also be advice about playing during the first Doctor’s time along with some adventure ideas. Most of these things are present in The First Doctor Sourcebook, but they take up only a very small portion (maybe 30 pages or so total) of the book. Beyond these things, I don’t really know what I expected, but I certainly didn’t expect what the book delivers. The vast majority of this 160-page book is devoted to presenting each of the first Doctor’s television stories as adventures that people can play out in their Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space games.

There are a lot of different ways you can play Adventures in Time and Space. You can play as one of the Doctors and any of his companions. You can create unique companions to travel with the Doctor. Or you can create your own original Time Lord characters to use instead of the Doctor. Alternatively, you can play the game without a Time Lord at all and have an all-human group, perhaps a UNIT or Torchwood group, or a group of time agents from the 51st century. There are limitless possibilities, but one possibility I never once considered was playing out a television story as a game adventure. And honestly, after reading the book, I would still never consider it.

Read my full review on my blog: http://ofdiceandpenblog.blogspot.ca/2013/07/defending-earth-unit-sourcebook.html

With UNIT playing such a major role in the history of the television show, it only makes sense that any game based on Doctor Who should need to address and describe the organization so that it can be used in the game, too. This is where Defending the Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook, a supplement for Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space, comes in. The book gives an in-depth look at UNIT and how to use it in Doctor Who roleplaying games that feature UNIT in any way, from games completely about UNIT where there is no Time Lord character and all the PCs are members of, or affiliated with, UNIT to games where UNIT only appears on rare occasions, to everything in between. The book contains material, too, that is applicable beyond just UNIT, such as some of the new traits and gadgets, as well as the expanded firearm rules. Defending the Earth continues the trend of high-quality, well-thought-out books for the Adventures in Time and Space game.

Read my full review on my blog: http://ofdiceandpenblog.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-time-travellers-companion.html

The Time Traveller’s Companion is a massive 240-page tome full of information about time travel, Time Lords, TARDISes, and more. Pretty much everything to do with time and its potential use in-game gets discussed in quite a lot of detail. Most of the book is descriptive detail, from a complete history of Gallifrey to temporal mechanics and space-time phenomena. Adventures in Time and Space is a rules-light game and this book maintains that, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any new rules elements here. These are mostly in the form of new traits (particularly Time Lord and gadget traits) and new gadgets, but there are also detailed rules for piloting TARDISes, regeneration, and more. I’m actually extremely impressed by just how much detail there is in the book. It has definitely made the long wait worth it.

Read my full review on my blog: http://ofdiceandpenblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/random-urban-encounters.html

Random Urban Encounters is the first product from Raging Swan that I’ve read and based upon it, I’m certainly interested in taking a look at some of their other offerings as well. This is not a book of random encounter tables as its name might imply. Instead, these are just a selection of unrelated encounters that can be used in place of a roll on one of those (let’s face it, rather boring) encounter tables in other books. Each encounter is one or two pages long and contains an overview of the situation, details on the NPCs involved (including background, personality, and distinguishing characteristics, as well as stat blocks), and relevant information about the location. Some of the encounters may not seem the most inspired or creative, but that’s not really a concern. This book accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do: provide gamemasters with quick ready-to-run and easy-to-use encounters. The layout of the book is professional, straight-forward, and easy to read. There is only a limited amount of black-and-white artwork, but this is not something that in any way bothered me.